Tag Archives: Swami Vivekananda

Behold, it comes in might,
The power that is not power,
The light that is in darkness,
The shade in dazzling light.
It is joy that never spoke,
And grief unfelt, profound,
Immortal life unlived,
Eternal death unmourned.
It is not joy nor sorrow,
But that which is between,
It is not night nor morrow,
But that which joins them in.

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The Mother’s heart, the hero’s will,
The softest flowers’ sweetest feel;
The charm and force that ever sway
The altar-fire’s flaming play;
The strength that leads, in love obeys;
Far-reaching dreams, and patient ways,
Eternal faith in Self, in all,
The light Divine in great, in small;
All these and more than I could see,
Today may “Mother” grant to thee!

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A sannyasin, in the strictest sense of the term, is always a free soul. Like a river, he is always on the move. Sometimes he spends the night at a burning ghat, sometimes he sleeps in the palace of the king, sometimes he rests at a railway station but he is always happy. Such a sannyasin was Swami Vivekananda whom we now find living at a railway station in Rajasthan. People kept coming to him all day long. They had many questions, mostly religious, and Swamiji was tireless in answering them. Three days and three nights passed in this manner. Swamiji was so engrossed in talking about spiritual matters that he did not even stop to eat. The people who flocked to him also did not think of asking him if he had any food to eat! On the third night of his stay there, when the visitors had all left, a poor man came forward and said to him lovingly, `Swamiji, I have noticed that for three days you have been talking and talking. You have not taken even a drop of water! This has pained me very much.’ Swamiji felt that God had appeared before him in the form of this poor man. He looked at him and said, `Will you please give me something to eat?’ The man was a cobbler by profession, so he said with some hesitation, `Swamiji, my heart yearns to give you some bread, but how can I? I have touched it. If you permit, I will bring you some coarse flour and dal and you can prepare them as you please!’ Swamiji said, `No, my child; give me the bread you have baked. I shall be happy to eat it.’ The poor man was frightened at first. He feared the king might punish him if he came to know that he, a low caste person, had prepared food for a sannyasin. But the eagerness to serve a monk overpowered his fear. He hurriedly went back home and soon returned with bread freshly baked for Swamiji. The kindness and unselfish love of this penurious man brought tears to Swamiji’s eyes. How many persons like this live in the huts of our country unnoticed, he thought. They are materially poor and of so-called humble origin, yet they are so noble and large-hearted. In the meantime, some gentlemen found that Swamiji was eating food offered by a shoemaker and were annoyed. They came to Swamiji and told him that it was improper for him to accept food from a man of low birth. Swamiji patiently heard them and then said, `You people made me talk without respite for the past three days, but you did not even care to inquire if I had taken any food and rest. You claim you are gentlemen and boast of your high caste; what is more shameful, you condemn this man for being of a low caste. Can you overlook the humanity he has just shown and despise him without feeling ashamed?’

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Swamiji(Swami Vivekananda) lived the ideal of fearlessness even as a small child. When he was barely 8 years old.He used to visit a friend of his,whose family had a Champaka tree in their compound. The Champaka flowers are said to be liked by Shiva and were incidentally a favorite of Swamiji’s too. This was Swamiji favorite tree and he loved to dangle head down from it! One day as he was swinging from the tree, the old and nearly blind grandfather of the house recognized his voice and approached him. The old man was afraid that the boy might fall and hurt himself or worse that he might lose some of his precious Champaka flowers! He called Naren (which was Swamiji’s pre-monastic name) down and told him not to climb the tree again.Why? asked Naren. Because the old man answered a Brahmadaitya (a ghost of a Brahmin) lives in that tree and at night he goes about dressed all in white, and he is terrible to look at! This was news to Naren, who wanted to know what else this Ghost could do besides wander about. The old man replied And he breaks the necks of those who climb the tree!

Naren simply nodded and said nothing and the old man went away smiling to himself in triumph. As soon as he had gone some distance, Naren climbed the tree again and was dangling back in his former position. His friend who was there all along cried outâ€¦â€Naren! The Brahmadaitya is sure to catch you and break your neck! Naren laughed heartily and said. What a silly fellow you are! Donâ€™t believe everything just because someone tells you! If the old grandfathers story were true then my neck would have been broken long ago! 

And this was Swamiji as a young boy.Bold AND fearless with an exceptionally strong common sense!

One morning in Sarnath, after visiting the temple of Mother Durga, the Swami was passing through a place, where there was a large tank of water on one side and a high wall on the other. Here, he was surrounded by a troop of large monkeys. They were not willing to allow him to passâ ¦and there was no other way. As he tried to walk past them, they howled and shrieked and clutched at his feet. As they pressed closer, he began to run; but the faster he ran, the bolder the monkeys got and they attempted to bite at him. When it seemed impossible for him to escape, he heard an old sannyasi calling out to him: â œFace the brutes!â  The words brought him to his senses. He stopped running and turned majestically to boldly face the irate monkeys. As soon as he did that, they fell back and fled! With reverence and gratitude he gave the traditional greeting to the sannyasi, who smilingly responded with the same, and walked away.

Swami Vivekananda was having a long trek in the Himalayas when he found an old man extremely exhausted standing hopelessly at the foot of an upward slope. The man said to Swamiji in frustration, ‘Oh, Sir, how to cross it; I cannot walk anymore; my chest will break.’

Swamiji listened to the old man patiently and then said, ‘Look down at your feet. The road that is under your feet is the road that you have passed over and is the same road that you see before you; it will soon be under your feet.’ These words emboldened the old man to resume his onward trek.

In America, Swamiji was watching some boys. They were standing on the bridge trying to shoot at egg-shells that Â were floating on the river, but they always missed the target. Swamiji took the gun and aimed at the shells. He fired twelve times and every time he hit an egg-shell. The boys asked Swamiji: ‘Well Mister, how did you do it?’ Swamiji said ‘Whatever you are doing, put your whole mind on it. If you are shooting, your mind should be only on the target. Then you will never miss. If you are learning your lessons, think only of the lesson. In my country boys are taught to do this.’

Narendra (Swami Vivekananda) was a master story-teller whose words were as magnetic as his personality. When he spoke everyone listened in rapt attention forgetting their work. One day while in school, Narendra was talking animatedly to his friends during a class recess. Meanwhile, the teacher had entered the classroom and had begun to teach his subject. But the students were too absorbed in Narendra’s story to pay any attention to the lesson. After some time had passed, the teacher heard the wishpering and understood what was going on! Visibly annoyed, he now asked each student what he had been lecturing on. None could answer. But Narendra was remarkably talented; his mind could work simultaneously on two planes. While he had engaged one part of his mind in talking, he had kept the other half on the lesson. So when the teacher asked him that question, he answered correctly. Quite nonplussed, the teacher inquired who had been talking so long. Everybody pointed at Narendranath, but the teacher refused to believe them. He then asked all the students except Narendra to stand up on the bench. Narendra also joined his friends and stood up. The teacher asked him to sit down. But Narendra replied: ‘No sir, I must also stand up because it was I who was talking to them.’

Before he left London, one of his British friends put this question to him: `Swami, how do you like now your motherland after four years’ experience of the luxurious, glorious, powerful West?’ Swamiji said: `India I loved before I came away. Now the very dust of India has become holy to me, the very air is now to me holy; it is now the holy land, the place of pilgrimage, the Tirtha!’

Swami Vivekananda was having a long trek in the Himalayas when he found an old man extremely exhausted standing hopelessly at the foot of an upward slope. The man said to Swamiji in frustration, ‘Oh, Sir, how to cross it; I cannot walk anymore; my chest will break.’

Swamiji listened to the old man patiently and then said, ‘Look down at your feet. The road that is under your feet is the road that you have passed over and is the same road that you see before you; it will soon be under your feet.’ These words emboldened the old man to resume his onward trek.

A sannyasin, in the strictest sense of the term, is always a free soul. Like a river, he is always on the move. Sometimes he spends the night at a burning ghat, sometimes he sleeps in the palace of the king, sometimes he rests at a railway station but he is always happy. Such a sannyasin was Swami Vivekananda whom we now find living at a railway station in Rajasthan. People kept coming to him all day long. They had many questions, mostly religious, and Swamiji was tireless in answering them. Three days and three nights passed in this manner. Swamiji was so engrossed in talking about spiritual matters that he did not even stop to eat. The people who flocked to him also did not think of asking him if he had any food to eat!

On the third night of his stay there, when the visitors had all left, a poor man came forward and said to him lovingly, `Swamiji, I have noticed that for three days you have been talking and talking. You have not taken even a drop of water! This has pained me very much.’

Swamiji felt that God had appeared before him in the form of this poor man. He looked at him and said, `Will you please give me something to eat?’ The man was a cobbler by profession, so he said with some hesitation, `Swamiji, my heart yearns to give you some bread, but how can I? I have touched it. If you permit, I will bring you some coarse flour and dal and you can prepare them as you please!’

Swamiji said, `No, my child; give me the bread you have baked. I shall be happy to eat it.’ The poor man was frightened at first. He feared the king might punish him if he came to know that he, a low caste person, had prepared food for a sannyasin. But the eagerness to serve a monk overpowered his fear. He hurriedly went back home and soon returned with bread freshly baked for Swamiji. The kindness and unselfish love of this penurious man brought tears to Swamiji’s eyes. How many persons like this live in the huts of our country unnoticed, he thought. They are materially poor and of so-called humble origin, yet they are so noble and large-hearted.

In the meantime, some gentlemen found that Swamiji was eating food offered by a shoemaker and were annoyed. They came to Swamiji and told him that it was improper for him to accept food from a man of low birth. Swamiji patiently heard them and then said, `You people made me talk without respite for the past three days, but you did not even care to inquire if I had taken any food and rest. You claim you are gentlemen and boast of your high caste; what is more shameful, you condemn this man for being of a low caste. Can you overlook the humanity he has just shown and despise him without feeling ashamed?’

In Gazipur there was a saint living by the side of the Ganga. A dacoit broke into his house. He had some silver vessels. For many days the dacoit had been watching. A lot of devotees used to give offerings to the saint. The dacoit thought that there must be some treasure. In the first chamber the vessels were kept. When the thief broke in, there were a lot of utensils. He took them and filled his bag. It made noise. The saint who heard it said: “What is this? Some animal is coming.” So he just came out of his meditation and saw a big man. When the thief saw him, the former began to take to his heels. Immediately the saint took the bag of utensils and ran behind the thief asking him to stop. He overtook the thief and said: “Why are you afraid? These are yours. Some more I will give you.” And thus the thief was sent away with all the things he had in his house. Years later, when Swami Vivekananda was going on a pilgrimage to Kedar, Badri, etc., he saw a Sadhu lying on the icy region. In those days the conditions of travelling were quite different altogether. Then there was no proper route and no proper facilities. With great difficulty he was making his pilgrimage. It was on his way somewhere that he saw the Sadhu in the icy region, lying helpless. Vivekananda gave him his own blanket. At that time the Sadhu looked up, and finding that Vivekananda was a spiritual man, began to narrate something of his past life.

“Have you heard of Saint Pavahari Baba? he asked Swami Vivekananda. Then he told him all about the incident that happened in the life of Pavahari Baba. He continued “I am the thief. From that day when the saint touched me a transformation came into my life. I repented my action bitterly. Since that time I am trying to atone for my sins.” That is the power of the saints. “God is everywhere”—this feeling is a wonderful method of progressing in your attempt to commune with God and ultimately become one with Him.

O’ver hill and dale and mountain range,
In temple, church, and mosque,
In Vedas, Bible, Al Koran
I had searched for Thee in vain.

Like a child in the wildest forest lost
I have cried and cried alone,
“Where art Thou gone, my God, my love?
The echo answered, “gone.”

And days and nights and years then passed
A fire was in the brain,
I knew not when day changed in night
The heart seemed rent in twain.
I laid me down on Ganges’s shore,
Exposed to sun and rain;
With burning tears I laid the dust
And wailed with waters’ roar.

I called on all the holy names
Of every clime and creed.
“Show me the way, in mercy, ye
Great ones who have reached the goal.”

Years then passed in bitter cry,
Each moment seemed an age,
Till one day midst my cries and groans
Some one seemed calling me.

A gentle soft and soothing voice
That said ‘my son’ ‘my son’,
That seemed to thrill in unison
With all the chords of my soul.

I stood on my feet and tried to find
The place the voice came from;
I searched and searched and turned to see
Round me, before, behind,
Again, again it seemed to speak
The voice divine to me.
In rapture all my soul was hushed,
Entranced, enthralled in bliss.

A flash illumined all my soul;
The heart of my heart opened wide.
O joy, O bliss, what do I find!
My love, my love you are here
And you are here, my love, my all!

And I was searching thee –
From all eternity you were there
Enthroned in majesty!
From that day forth, wherever I roam,
I feel Him standing by
O’ver hill and dale, high mount and vale,
Far far away and high.

The moon’s soft light, the stars so bright,
The glorious orb of day,
He shines in them; His beauty – might –
Reflected lights are they.
The majestic morn, the melting eve,
The boundless billowing sea,
In nature’s beauty, songs of birds,
I see through them – it is He.

When holy friendship shakes the hand,
He stands between them too;
He pours the nectar in mother’s kiss
And the baby’s sweet “mama”.
Thou wert my God with prophets old,
All creeds do come from Thee,
The Vedas, Bible, and Koran bold
Sing Thee in Harmony.

We believe that every being is divine, is God. Every soul is a sun covered over with clouds of ignorance; the difference between soul and soul is owing to the difference in density of these layers of clouds.

This is the first lesson to learn: be determined not to curse anything outside, not to lay the blame upon anyone outside, but stand up, lay the blame on yourself. You will find that is always true. Get hold of yourself.

Tell the truth boldly, whether it hurts or not. Never pander to weakness. If truth is too much for intelligent people and sweeps them away, let them go; the sooner the better.

This life is a hard fact; work your way through it boldly, though it may be adamantine; no matter, the soul is stronger.

This I have seen in life—those who are overcautious about themselves fall into dangers at every step; those who are afraid of losing honor and respect, get only disgrace; and those who are always afraid of loss, always lose.

“Face the brutes.” That is a lesson for all life—face the terrible, face it boldly. Like the monkeys, the hardships of life fall back when we cease to flee before them.

Those who work at a thing heart and soul not only achieve success in it but through their absorption in that they also realize the supreme truth—Brahman. Those who work at a thing with their whole heart receive help from God.

I, for one, thoroughly believe that no power in the universe can withhold from anyone anything they really deserve.

The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you free.

Fear is death, fear is sin, fear is hell, fear is unrighteousness, fear is wrong life. All the negative thoughts and ideas that are in the world have proceeded from this evil spirit of fear.

Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.

As long as we believe ourselves to be even the least different from God, fear remains with us; but when we know ourselves to be the One, fear goes; of what can we be afraid?

There is one thing to be remembered: that the assertion—I am God—cannot be made with regard to the sense-world.

All that is real in me is God; all that is real in God is I. The gulf between God and me is thus bridged. Thus by knowing God, we find that the kingdom of heaven is within us.

First get rid of the delusion “I am the body”, then only will we want real knowledge.

What the world wants is character. The world is in need of those whose life is one burning love, selfless. That love will make every word tell like a thunderbolt.

God is merciful to those whom He sees struggling heart and soul for realization. But remain idle, without any struggle, and you will see that His grace will never come.

We have to go back to philosophy to treat things as they are. We are suffering from our own karma. It is not the fault of God. What we do is our own fault, nothing else. Why should God be blamed?

Fill the brain with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you, and out of that will come great work.

Who makes us ignorant? We ourselves. We put our hands over our eyes and weep that it is dark.

Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.

We must have friendship for all; we must be merciful toward those that are in misery; when people are happy, we ought to be happy; and to the wicked we must be indifferent. These attitudes will make the mind peaceful.

Every action that helps us manifest our divine nature more and more is good; every action that retards it is evil.

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.

Are great things ever done smoothly? Time, patience, and indomitable will must show.

Great work requires great and persistent effort for a long time. … Character has to be established through a thousand stumbles.

Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste.

Those who grumble at the little thing that has fallen to their lot to do will grumble at everything. Always grumbling they will lead a miserable life…. But those who do their duty putting their shoulder to the wheel will see the light, and higher and higher duties will fall to their share.

Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power.

Each work has to pass through these stages—ridicule, opposition, and then acceptance. Those who think ahead of their time are sure to be misunderstood.

Watch people do their most common actions; these are indeed the things that will tell you the real character of a great person.

“Comfort” is no test of truth; on the contrary, truth is often far from being “comfortable”.

Whenever we attain a higher vision, the lower vision disappears of itself.

We came to enjoy; we are being enjoyed. We came to rule; we are being ruled. We came to work; we are being worked. All the time, we find that. And this comes into every detail of our life.

We are ever free if we would only believe it, only have faith enough. You are the soul, free and eternal, ever free, ever blessed. Have faith enough and you will be free in a minute.

A few heart-whole, sincere, and energetic men and women can do more in a year than a mob in a century.

Stand as a rock; you are indestructible. You are the Self (atman), the God of the universe.

Stand upon the Self, only then can we truly love the world. Take a very high stand; knowing our universal nature, we must look with perfect calmness upon all the panorama of the world.

“I am the thread that runs through all these pearls,” and each pearl is a religion or even a sect thereof. Such are the different pearls, and God is the thread that runs through all of them; most people, however, are entirely unconscious of it.

Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourselves. Therefore, make your own future.

It is the patient building of character, the intense struggle to realize the truth, which alone will tell in the future of humanity.

If there is one word that you find coming out like a bomb from the Upanishads, bursting like a bombshell upon masses of ignorance, it is the word “fearlessness.”

Be a hero. Always say, “I have no fear.” Tell this to everyone—“Have no fear.”

The world is ready to give up its secrets if we only know how to knock, how to give it the necessary blow. The strength and force of the blow come through concentration.

Work and worship are necessary to take away the veil, to lift off the bondage and illusion.

The powers of the mind should be concentrated and the mind turned back upon itself; as the darkest places reveal their secrets before the penetrating rays of the sun, so will the concentrated mind penetrate its own innermost secrets.

It is the cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties.

The mind is but the subtle part of the body. You must retain great strength in your mind and words.

All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind; the infinite library of the universe is in our own mind.

Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know.

However we may receive blows, and however knocked about we may be, the Soul is there and is never injured. We are that Infinite.

Perfection is always infinite. We are the Infinite already. You and I, and all beings, are trying to manifest that infinity.

Blows are what awaken us and help to break the dream. They show us the insufficiency of this world and make us long to escape, to have freedom.

So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire.

The more you think of yourself as shining immortal spirit, the more eager you will be to be absolutely free of matter, body, and senses. This is the intense desire to be free.

The Self when it appears behind the universe is called God. The same Self when it appears behind this little universe—the body—is the soul.

As body, mind, or soul, you are a dream; you really are Being, Consciousness, Bliss (satchidananda). You are the God of this universe.

The essence of Vedanta is that there is but one Being and that every soul is that Being in full, not a part of that Being.

As soon as I think that I am a little body, I want to preserve it, to protect it, to keep it nice, at the expense of other bodies; then you and I become separate.

Truth does not pay homage to any society, ancient or modern. Society has to pay homage to Truth or die.

If superstition enters, the brain is gone.

Superstition is our great enemy, but bigotry is worse.

A tremendous stream is flowing toward the ocean, carrying us all along with it; and though like straws and scraps of paper we may at times float aimlessly about, in the long run we are sure to join the Ocean of Life and Bliss.

God is self-evident, impersonal, omniscient, the Knower and the Master of nature, the Lord of all. He is behind all worship and it is being done according to Him, whether we know it or not.

As soon as you know the voice and understand what it is, the whole scene changes. The same world which was the ghastly battlefield of maya is now changed into something good and beautiful.

Delusion will vanish as the light becomes more and more effulgent, load after load of ignorance will vanish, and then will come a time when all else has disappeared and the sun alone shines.

Come out into the broad light of day, come out from the little narrow paths, for how can the infinite soul rest content to live and die in small ruts?

Come out into the universe of Light. Everything in the universe is yours, stretch out your arms and embrace it with love. If you every felt you wanted to do that, you have felt God.

This is no world. It is God Himself. In delusion we call it world.

Understanding human nature is the highest knowledge, and only by knowing it can we know God. It is also a fact that the knowledge of God is the highest knowledge, and only by knowing God can we understand human nature.

This is the great lesson that we are here to learn through myriads of births and heavens and hells—that there is nothing to be asked for, desired for, beyond one’s spiritual Self (atman).

Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through selfless work.

Strength is the sign of vigor, the sign of life, the sign of hope, the sign of health, and the sign of everything that is good. As long as the body lives, there must be strength in the body, strength in the mind, strength in the hand.

Impurity is a mere superimposition under which your real nature has become hidden. But the real you is already perfect, already strong.

If you want to have life, you have to die every moment for it. Life and death are only different expressions of the same thing looked at from different standpoints; they are the falling and the rising of the same wave, and the two form one whole.

Astrology and all these mystical things are generally signs of a weak mind; therefore as soon as they are becoming prominent in our minds, we should see a physician, take good food, and rest.

Religion as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the human mind can have.

The varieties of religious belief are an advantage, since all faiths are good, so far as they encourage us to lead a religious life. The more sects there are, the more opportunities there are for making a successful appeal to the divine instinct in all of us.

Be perfectly resigned, perfectly unconcerned; then alone can you do any true work. No eyes can see the real forces; we can only see the results. Put out self, forget it; just let God work, it is His business.

Look upon every man, woman, and everyone as God. You cannot help anyone, you can only serve: serve the children of the Lord, serve the Lord Himself, if you have the privilege.

Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.

Nature, body, mind go to death, not we. We neither go nor come. The man Vivekananda is in nature, is born and dies; but the Self we see as Vivekananda is never born and never dies. It is the eternal and unchangeable Reality.

The less passion there is, the better we work. The calmer we are the better for us and the more the amount of work we can do. When we let loose our feelings, we waste so much energy, shatter our nerves, disturb our minds, and accomplish very little work.

Knowledge can only be got in one way, the way of experience; there is no other way to know.

There is no help for you outside of yourself; you are the creator of the universe. Like the silkworm you have built a cocoon around yourself…. Burst your own cocoon and come out aw the beautiful butterfly, as the free soul. Then alone you will see Truth.

Have you got the will to surmount mountain-high obstructions? If the whole world stands against you sword in hand, would you still dare to do what you think is right?

Purity, patience, and perseverance are the three essentials to success and, above all, love.

Our first duty is not to hate ourselves, because to advance we must have faith in ourselves first and then in God. Those who have no faith in themselves can never have faith in God.

Every individual is a center for the manifestation of a certain force. This force has been stored up as the resultant of our previous works, and each one of us is born with this force at our back.

Why are people so afraid? The answer is that they have made themselves helpless and dependent on others. We are so lazy, we do not want to do anything ourselves. We want a Personal God, a Savior or a Prophet to do everything for us.

I fervently wish no misery ever came near anyone; yet it is that alone that gives us an insight into the depths of our lives, does it not? In our moments of anguish, gates barred forever seem to open and let in many a flood of light.

Religion has no business to formulate social laws and insist on the difference between beings, because its aim and end is to obliterate all such fictions and monstrosities.

Is there any sex-distinction in the Atman (Self)? Out with the differentiation between man and woman—all is Atman! Give up the identification with the body, and stand up!

He whom the sages have been seeking in all these places is in our own hearts; the voice that you heard was right, says Vedanta, but the direction you gave to the voice was wrong.

The essential thing in religion is making the heart pure; the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, but only the pure in heart can see the King. While we think of the world, it is only the world for us; but let us come to it with the feeling that the world is God, and we shall have God.